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 “And you don't want me to go with you, Peter?”

“Why, n-no, Cissie; a girl like you couldn't go. Perhaps I'll be misunderstood in places, perhaps I may have to leave a town hurriedly, or be swung over the walls, like Paul, in a basket.” He attempted to treat it lightly.

But the girl looked at him with a horror dawning in her melancholy face.

“Peter, do you really mean that?” she whispered.

“Why, truly. You don't imagine—”

The octoroon opened her dark eyes until she might have been some weird.

“Oh, Peter, please, please put such a mad idea away from you! Peter, you've been living here alone in this old house until you don't see things clearly. Dear Peter, don't you know? You can't go out and talk like that to white folks and—and not have some terrible thing happen to you! Oh, Peter, if you would only marry me, it would cure you of such wildness!” Involuntarily she got up, holding out her arms to him, offering herself to his needs, with her frightened eyes fixed on his.

It made him exquisitely uncomfortable again. He made a little sound designed to comfort and reassure her. He would do very well. He was something of a diplomat in his way. He had got along with the boys in Harvard very well indeed. In fact, he was rather a man of the world. No need to worry about him, though it was awfully sweet of her.